Last time this much gold crossed the Atlantic, the French were repatriating their gold reserves from New York — in the 1960s, a few years before the gold-based Bretton Woods monetary system collapsed. The time before then, in July 1940, Operation Fish had the Brits shuffle away 1,500 metric tons to Canada, to keep the treasure away from Hitler in the event the latter would capture London. The armies imminently circling London these days are of a different sort, clad in bankers’ attire rather than military uniform, their appetite for vaulted gold no less strong.